Cameron will survive this unimportant quasi-rebellion

As I pointed out before I was not overwhelmed by the behaviour of Conservative (or any other) MPs on the question of the EU budget. A lot of pother about very little though, undoubtedly one must honour the 37 Tories and 5 others who did have the gumption to vote for Douglas Carswell's Amendment.

Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal to whom I have referred before (here and here) is of a different opinion. He is all excited and thinks that David Cameron a.k.a. the Boy-King of the Conservative Party and through some strange historical joke the Prime Minister of this country, must be getting worried.

Occassionaly, when hardly a soul is watching, it is still possible to see something in the Commons that might, just might, suggest interesting developments years hence. “We’re the ipod generation of Euroskeptics,” said one MP. “Younger, more moderate and determined to decontaminate the Euroskeptic brand.”

Just how many years hence and what kind of an idiot makes comments about ipod generations of eurosceptics, hoping to get away with it? Do they have mush for brains? (OK, don't answer that.)

Apparently, a number of those mysterious non-voters who made those astonishingly courageous speeches (yes, I am being sarcastic here) had to leave because of prior engagement. Well, well, well. Is this how a rebellion is to be conducted? By people having prior engagements when the important vote actually rolls around? I suppose Ms Pritti Patel just could not cancel or postpone that engagement, knowing how important this vote was? No, of course not.

Anyway, I agree with Witterings from Witney: this will give Cameron no headache, not even a twinge.

Iain Martin's supposition that the Conservative Eurosceptic MPs may bring down the Coalition has a touch of 'pie in the sky' about it - especially when accepting that Cameron has more iron in his grip on his party than he has in his guarantees! Which probably accounts for the fact that Conservative Eurosceptic MPs seem able to 'talk the talk' but unable to 'walk the walk'.

For once, I even agree with Roger Helmer who wrote before this vote that the Cleggeron Coalition has lost the plot as far as the EU is concerned. Nothing that happened in the last couple of days has disproved that.